Sunday, November 1, 2009

The Rage of Achilles by Terence Hawkins Blood. Guts. Pride. Wrath.

The ancient clash of armies outside the walls of Troy is a cornerstone of Western literature. In The Rage of Achilles, Terence Hawkins brilliantly reimagines that titanic encounter. His stunningly original telling captures the brutality of the battlefield, the glory and the gore, in language that never relents.

Raw and compelling, The Rage of Achilles tells the story of Achilles, a monstrous hero, by turns vain and selfish, cruel and noble; of Paris, weak and consumed by lust for his stolen bride; of Agamemnon, driven nearly to insanity by the voices of the gods; and of Trojans and Achaeans, warriors and peasants, caught up in the conflict, their families torn apart by a decade-long war. The Rage of Achilles is an exhilarating story that has captured the imaginations of readers for thousands of years restored to immediacy.

"The Rage of Achilles is that rare thing--a genuinely fresh take on a classic text. Terence Hawkins' modern retelling of The Iliad has the paradoxical, invigorating effect of making Homer's epic feel oddly familiar, and of highlighting its deep strangeness at the same time." - Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children

"In this masterful account by Terence Hawkins, the Trojan War is infused with all the immediacy of a current event." - Richard Selzer, author of The Doctor Stories
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